Welcome to Gaia! ::

It had been another long day and the pink lioness was tired. Not in a bad way, where she ached from head to toe, couldn't catch her breath and felt her own mortality. No, this was a good tired, where her muscles had been exercised but still strong, the aches were from blows she'd allowed her students to land and the only mortality she cared about was how well the learners would survive on a battlefield. If only every day felt this way at the end.

Mittere had been much more aware of her body of late. Ever since she'd admitted that she'd been struck by the plague. It still galled her and rubbed her fur the wrong way, but she did hate keeping secrets. Interestingly enough, some of her students had been less hostile since her illness became general knowledge. Perhaps they felt it made her more a member of the pride, since gods all knew she hadn't been at all interested or inclined to join. At least, not until she'd realized she was stuck here for the rest of her life...

The thought trailed off abruptly as Mittere looked up and saw someone waiting outside her den. She recognized the lioness and it wasn't Nawiri'chiwa. But the pink lioness couldn't come up with a single reason why Tarafa should be here, nor why the Bard should be wearing such a sheepish expression. It put her fur on edge, this unexplainable situation.

Blue eyes narrowed as Mittere considered how to get past the other lioness and into her own den. She could simply elbow the other out of the way, but that would be rude even for her. So...she'd let Tarafa make the first move and go right ahead.

A pink eyebrow lifted delicately as Mittere watched the normally loquacious Bard fumble for words. This was...quite unusual. Blue eyes bored into blue eyes as the pink lioness silently sought answers to the unspoken questions. What was Tarafa doing here? Why had she been waiting for her?

This wasn't at all like the Bard Mittere knew, the one who'd laughed hysterically when they'd first met and shown no fear whatsoever. Nor even the Bard who'd cautioned her against being too feared by other lions in the pride. She'd seen this kind of fear on green warriors about to be sent to their first battles, especially when they took the time to speak to their loved ones before departing.

The question was...why should Tarafa be wearing that expression here and now?

"Yes?" she asked at last. It seemed that since the other lioness wasn't talking, Mittere would have to propel the conversation in order to get this thing moving.

If it was anyone else, they would have taken an almost equal number of steps back as Tarafa approached. Instead, Mittere straightened. She'd never actually been so close to any lion before. Yes, she'd been training the fighters, yes she'd been cared for by healers, yes she'd been trained herself and yes she'd been cared for as a cub. But that wasn't the same. Parents had liberties that no one else did and teaching and healing necessitated nearness that was simply a means to an end.

This was different. The very air between them seemed charged with a thousand unsaid words. And Mittere couldn't swear to what those might be.

So... "Yes?" she said again. The pink lioness could almost feel Tarafa steeling herself for something, but she hadn't the faintest idea what. Her own heart was starting to beat faster and she began analyzing the best ways to get away from the blue lioness, should she turn violent. But even as she constructed escape plans, Mittere seriously doubted that Tarafa would attack her. It simply wasn't in the Bard's nature, as far as she could tell.

So then, why was her heart pounding?

Mittere almost ran as Tarafa stepped forward once more, bringing her head alongside the pink lioness' own. She turned towards the other when something she hadn't expected at all happened.

Tarafa licked her.

It wasn't like a mother cleaning up a persistently dirty cub. Or a healer cleaning a wound. This was much more...carnal. Mittere was struck dumb momentarily as the actions of the moment penetrated and started to make a surprising amount of sense. No wonder Tarafa had been so nervous! It wasn't more than a small fraction of lions that preferred their own gender and the pink lioness had never once suspected that the Bard would be one of those.

She stood still, neither leaning in nor stepping away, when she felt something wetting her fur besides Tarafa's gentle tongue. Blue eyes reopened (and when had she closed them?) and she saw that the other lioness was crying.

Mittere didn't understand it. First the caressing, which had yet to stop, now tears? Why? It didn't make any sense at all.

Then the pink lioness realized that her body was rebelling once again. Tears were filling her own eyes and she wondered why she was crying too.

A voice from her past filtered up from the depths of memory. Sometimes, it said, you have to stop thinking and just feel. Don't give me that look Mittere, one day even you will have to give in to emotions. Mentally cursing the dead lion for his all-too-accurate insight, the pink lioness did as she was told. She shoved thought to the side and stopped examining what her body was doing. Instead she looked to her heart.

Almost as if she was an observer in her own head, Mittere felt herself turn slightly and return the caress as her tears joined Tarafa's in dampening the dust beneath their paws.

She hadn't really expected Tarafa to start crying into her neck, but Mittere did what she could to comfort the other lioness with tongue and paw and yes, even voice. She murmured nonsense that parents and lovers have spoken to children and beloved for thousands of years, that it would be okay, that she was here, that she would never leave...

The pink lioness was startled to realize she meant these words with all her heart. She'd never once considered the thought that her mate of choice would be another lioness. Then again, she'd never really considered a mate of any kind. And the more she thought about it, the more firmly she felt that she wouldn't have it any other way. So she nuzzled and cuddled Tarafa until the older lioness' tears finally ran out and blue eyes stared into blue eyes, both sets red-rimmed but clear.

"No," she replied, unsure of why the words came out a whisper, but unwilling to change it. "No, thank you, Tarafa." She studied the other lioness and looked around beyond them. No one was here, which wasn't surprising - she'd picked this den because it was more isolated than the ones in the heart of the pridelands.

"Come inside. I think we have a lot to...talk about." she invited. Talk, certainly, though the pink lioness suspected it would be the Bard who talked more. That was, after all, what Bards did. And Warriors listened.

And if anything else other than talk happened, well, then, that wasn't the purview of anyone else now was it?